A Response to John Shore

This article is a response to John Shore's article "Taking God at his
Word: The Bible and Homosexuality" on patheos.com (April 2, 2102). Not
because I have something against John Shore but because Mr. Shore very
eloquently presents the majority of the arguments that homosexuals have
presented against the Church; and, I might say, presents those arguments
as logically as is possible for untruth to be presented. This article is
primarily intended not so much to be a rebuttal of Mr. Shore's arguments
as to be a resource to which Christians might refer to see that all that
appears logical may not necessarily be true or Godly. Please note that
while I refer repeatedly to John in the article below I do so merely by
convention as it is far simpler to respond directly to the author of an
article than it is to the group with which he is associated.

If you are a member of what John refers to as the "LGBT Community,"
please know that I bear you no animosity. You may be offended by this
article, and I am truly sorry if you are, but please remember as you
read the word "sinner" in this article I am not only referring to you
but also to myself before God saved me.

So, onward.

John begins his article by saying that "God does not ask us to
choose between compassion and faith in the Bible;" a statement with
which I certainly have no argument and with which most, if not all of the Church can
whole heartedly agree. The prime Biblical example of the truth of this
statement is in the presence of Jesus in our form. Not only did He share
our lives that we might share His; He also non-judgmentally welcomed
all who came to Him, to the point that prostitutes, tax-collectors and
other sinners were comfortable around Him.

John is wrong, however, in one of his final statements of this
section, where he says "reconciling the Bible with unqualified
acceptance and equality for LGBT people does not necessitate
discounting, recasting, or deconstructing the Bible. All it takes is
reading those passages of the Bible wherein homosexuality is mentioned
with the same care that we would any other passage of the book." He is
wrong because to interpret the Bible in such a manner as to accept sin
of any kind does indeed require "discounting, recasting, or
deconstructing the Bible."

I also agree with the premise of the next section, where John states
"If there is no clearly stated directive in the Bible to marginalize and
ostracize gay people, then it is morally indefensible for Christians to
continue to do so." Marginalization and ostracism of anyone run counter
all that the Bible teaches. We who are Christians are saved, we say we
are saved because we have literally been saved from death by the
sacrifice and resurrection of Jesus Christ, our Saviour. We have been
saved not because we were worth saving but because we were so unworthy
that there was no hope for us but that it came from God. How can we say
that we are God's children if we withhold this very gift from those who
need it as we do. Not more. Not less. The same.

Where I begin to disagree with John is in his next section, where he
begins by saying "Heterosexual Christians are being unbiblical by using
the clobber passages as justification for applying absolute standards of
morality to homosexual 'sins' that they themselves are not tempted to
commit, while at the same time accepting for themselves a standard of
relative morality for those sins listed in the clobber passages that
they do routinely commit." That one Christian is not
tempted by a sin that is a true struggle for another does not invalidate
his argument against that sin; and in fact may well make that Christian
the best help available to overcome that sin.

John makes several errors of
conclusion here to which I would like respond:

First - John begins by creating
a negative impression by referring to the passages in the Bible that
prohibit homosexuality as "clobber verses." True, he does so primarily
because "they are typically used by Christians to 'clobber' LGBT
people." Also true, it is reprehensible that Christians would use the
Bible to damage people rather than to heal them. To do such is sin, from
which we must repent. Yet by calling them clobber verses, John extends a
negative connotation to all Christians who would use these passages in
their discussions with homosexuals. This creates a sympathetic response
to his argument without supporting fact.

Second - John continues by
saying "Homosexuality is briefly mentioned in only six or seven of the
Bible's 31,173 verses...The fact that homosexuality is so rarely
mentioned in the Bible should be an indication to us of the lack of
importance ascribed it by the authors of the Bible." a)
He makes a mistake here in assuming that quantity (or lack of it) is
indicative of importance; yet murder and theft are scarcely mentioned
more frequently and yet are almost universally reviled regardless of the
scarcity of supporting texts. b) He also begins here,
by referring to "the authors of the Bible," to humanize the Bible's
author; distracting his readers from the fact that while man penned the
Bible, its true author is God. c) Finally, it is not
the number of times a thing is condemned in the Bible that shows us it
is evil but that it is condemned at all. When God condemns an act He
need only condemn it once for all to know that act is evil and against
His will. By repeatedly condemning that act, God is emphasizing its
evil, not saying it is more evil than something He had condemned less
frequently.

Third - He is completely correct
in saying "If heterosexual Christians are obligated to look to the Bible
to determine the sinfulness of homosexual acts, how much greater is
their obligation to look to the Bible to determine the sinfulness of
their behavior toward gay persons...?" We Christians are
obligated to love everyone just as Jesus did. To the point of forgiving
them as they are in the act of sin against us. As John continues "a
great deal of [the Bible's] content is devoted to how a Christian should
behave," and if we are actively antagonistic toward homosexuals we are,
in fact, sinning.

But in saying "...,
especially in light of the gay community's call to them for justice?" he
wrongfully assumes that homosexuals are on a quest for justice that has been denied
them by the Church. It has been my observation that justice is not
wanted as much as for the Church
to accept them as they are, without their having to change.
Both he and the rest of the "LGBT community" convey the struggle in terms of an equality that has been denied
them because of Christianity's unwillingness to abandon it's archaic
sexual morality. It is, in
fact, a spiritual struggle where homosexuals want the Church to change
for them rather than them to change for the Church. As though merely
being in the Church, yet not having one's life changed by Jesus, were
sufficient for salvation. Yet if the Church be changed as they wish then it will no longer be the Church and even if it could
have offered salvation at one time, once changed it could do so no longer.
Which, in my opinion, is specifically the goal: The destruction of the
Church as the body of Christ and its transformation into a social club
of no ultimate benefit to anyone; saint or sinner.

John continues this section by saying that "Christians evaluate the
degree of sin, or even whether or not a real sin has occurred, by
looking at both the harm caused by the sin, and the intent o the sin's
perpetrator. They do, that is, for all sins except homosexuality." Even
if Christians, as a group, truly act as John says we do, it is obvious
that he is setting up a straw-man to make his point. A sentence or two
earlier he states that Christians "accept as inevitable that any given
Christian will, for instance, on occasion drink too much, lust, or tell
a lie." He is here defining those who sin and whom Christians will
nevertheless accept sinners of occasion. (Even so, those Christians in
leadership who are 'caught' in such sins are typically reprimanded,
disciplined and/or removed of their office.)

That this is what he is doing is made even more clear in his
following statement "They understand that circumstances and normal human
weaknesses must be taken into account before condemning any
transgression." Again, he makes a correct statement but applies it too
far. Having set up his straw-man of Christian acceptance of occasional
sinners he now wants to have that same acceptance extended to habitual
(or unrepentant) sinners. In no church on the planet will you typically
find unrepentant murderers gladly accepted. A person who under certain
circumstances has committed murder and is repentant, yes, you will find
them accepted. But someone who is known to not only have murdered but
who continues to murder despite objection, no, you will find that person
accepted. It is not that the Church is against homosexuality but that
the Church is against unrepented homosexuality. Just as it is against
any other unrepented sin.

John then uses the passage "Do not judge, or you too will be judged.
For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the
measure you use, it will be measured to you" (Matthew 7:1-2) as an
admonition for Christians to not behave toward homosexuality as they do.
Yet there are several errors in his application of this passage:

First - By telling the Christian
not to judge the behaviour of others he is, in fact, judging the
behaviour of Christians. Christians cannot tell homosexuals that what
they do is sin but John can tell Christians that they sin? This is
hypocritical.

Second - To take this verse and
apply it to Christian condemnation of homosexuality while overlooking
all the passages in the Bible that specifically encourage confrontation
of sin lifts this passage entirely out of its context. Just a few words
later John makes this very argument himself - "The Bible isn’t a
rulebook, and Christians cannot lift out of its context any passage from
it, and still hope to gain a clear understanding of that passage."
Again, in doing what he says Christians cannot do is also hypocritical.

Third - In referring only to
this passage and ignoring the incessant emphasis of the New Testament on
repentance from sin John overlooks the fact that Christianity is a
religion of reformation. Every Christian, myself included, was at one
time an unrepentant sinner. Every Christian, myself included, has been
rescued from that life by a miraculous act of God through His son Jesus.
Every Christian, myself included, is no longer a rebel against God but a
child of God.

John also makes an error in interpretation here in equating
correction as judgment. The purpose of judgment is to apply the a
penalty for the thing being judged. That is not what Christians are to
do. Christians are to correct, or confront, as I have said above. The
purpose of correction is to enable the one being corrected to avoid the
penalty that is the result of the thing being corrected.

He correctly applies the subsequent passage he quotes: "Why do you
look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention
to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Brother,
let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when you yourself fail to see
the plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of
your eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your
brother’s eye" (Luke 6:41-42) and I suspect that this may actually be at
the heart of his argument. That for Christians to confront homosexuality
as sin yet to continue in their own sin is also hypocritical. Christians
need to be extremely careful when confronting sin.

John next proceeds to discredit Old Testament laws against
homosexuality. "Using the four Old Testament passages to condemn all
homosexual acts is not in keeping with any Christian directive from God,
nor with the practices of contemporary Christians. The Bible’s first
four references to homosexuality occur in the Old Testament. While
continuing to be spiritually inspired and influenced by the Old
Testament, Christians were specifically instructed by Paul not to follow
the law of the Old Testament....Therefore, the use of the four Old
Testament passages to condemn all homosexual acts is not in keeping with
any Christian directive from God, nor with the practices of contemporary
Christians." What he has done here is to interpret the Bible based on
the conclusion he wants, rather than to come to a conclusion based on
what the Bible says. His argument that the Old Testament laws against
homosexuality can be discarded because Paul told Christians that they
were no longer under the law is very poor interpretation. Paul never
once discarded the law of the Old Testament and he himself kept the law
even after becoming a Christian. (His arrest in Acts took place in the
Temple as he was offering the sacrifice required at the termination of a
Nazirite vow.) Every reference that Paul makes to the law is in the
context of its powerlessness to save us from the sin that it convicts us
of. Paul's argument is not that the law is no longer necessary but that
it never was sufficient to save anyone because "it is impossible for the
blood of bulls and goats to take away sins." Paul sees that the law
informs us of sin but can do nothing to alleviate sin's power; that
could only be done through the blood of Jesus. Jesus Himself said that
He did not come to abolish the law but to fulfill it. No Christian today
considers the law to be worthless, but we do see it to be powerless;
pointing out our sins to us but with no ability to make atonement for
those sins. This is what Jesus meant when He said that He came to
fulfill the law; it was to Him that the law pointed and it is His
sacrifice that provides the atonement for our sin to which the law could
only point.

There are also two significant New Testament interpretations of the
Old Testament that John completely overlooks in his argument for the
contextualization of Paul's prohibition of homosexuality:

First - Jesus' own words where
He tells His hearers: "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law
or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them."
In speaking these words Jesus upholds all the teaching of the Old
Testament as being as valid as when they were first spoken.

Second - In his letter to
Timothy, Paul writes that "All Scripture is breathed out by God and
profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training
in righteousness," at the very least indicating that, whether or not
Paul's opposition to homosexuality could be contextualized, Paul
continued to regard the entirety of Old Testament as the word of God.

Neither of the above in any way supports the idea that the laws
against homosexuality in the Old Testament were discarded in the New
Testament; but, rather, that these laws continued to stand as the will
of God.

What John seems to be really trying to do here is to discredit the definite
Old Testament laws against homosexuality so that he can move on to what
he regards as the New Testament's more ambiguous opposition to
homosexuality. Once he is at the point where the Old Testament no longer
applies he can begin to discredit the New Testament's opposition to
homosexuality on cultural context and adopts the line of "caring,
committed, loving relationship" as though care, commitment and love
were what makes anything acceptable to God. But the point is not what we
say makes a thing acceptable to God but what God says is acceptable to
Him. In the Old Testament God calls homosexuality a sin. In both the Old
and New Testaments God says that He does not change. How then can we
come to the conclusion that God no longer considers homosexuality a sin
in the New Testament? If God calls homosexuality a sin in the Old
Testament and God does not change then it is still a sin in the New
Testament.

So, having said all this, what must be the Christian's response to
homosexuality in the Church? The Christian must respond in love and in
such a way as to not hinder the grace of God in the life of anyone who
wants to know God as Father.

Should the Church accept homosexuals in leadership positions? No,
because no unrepentant sinner must be in such a place as to affect the
doctrine of the Church or its ministry to the saint and the sinner.

Should the Church accept unrepentant homosexuals in its body? No, it
cannot because an unrepentant sinner has no place in the Body of Christ.
This is not a matter of policy but of possibility; it is simply
impossible for an unrepentant sinner to join something where repentance
is the foremost criteria.

Should the Church welcome unrepentant homosexuals in attendance? Yes,
most emphatically! For if we will not go to them, how will they hear the
gospel if they do not come to us?

Should Christians tell unrepentant homosexuals that they sin? Yes,
with an abundance of love. Just as we would unrepentant murderers,
thieves or adulterers. To not confront sin as sin is to say that God is
wrong, which He cannot be. To not love the sinner is to say that Jesus
is wrong, which He cannot be. Christians exist for one purpose and one
purpose only: To make disciples of all nations, introducing them to
salvation and teaching them the way of God. How can we do this if we do
not both confront sin as sin and love those who sin as lost lambs of
God?